Digital Tradition Mirror

Manassa Junction

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Manassa Junction

In eighteen hundred and sixty-one way down in old Virginia
MacDowell marched with old and young, horsethieves and other villains

There was Tories there and dirty Dutch and Hessians and Yankees bloody
With the regular troops from Tennessee united in one body

To crush the traitor was their plan and' then march on to Richmond
An' handcuff every Rebel man as fast as they could catch 'em.

But never was a ditch they dug more ready for the diggers
Nor did they by their false humbug succeed in stealin' niggers

Then General Scott from Chesterville delivered his dispatches
While Beauregard on the battlefield cried, "Boys, pull down your hatches."

Then down they went of German Gulf an' stopped their blood and thunder
While Kirby and the Southern boys put all their men asunder

An' then the race for life begun, the Yankees seen us comin'
An' every individual man displayed his skill a-runnin'

The ladies who came out to see the rebel host defeated
They was themselves compelled to flee when all their men retreated

They lost, poor souls, their crimson fine an' all their ball equipage
Was scattered o'er the battle line like common soldiers' baggage

They left upon the battle ground their wounded, sick an' dying'
They never turned their faces round so swiftly was they flyin'

Their ammunition, stores an' guns, provisions, mess an' horses
The cowards left behind and run before our Southern forces.

No men of earth did fight more brave than did our Southern soldiers
But many found a solder's grave an' there his body molders.

But still they will on memory's page live on in song and story
An' honored both by youth and age they fill their graves with glory.

DT #799
Laws A9
From Randolph, Ozark Folksongs, vol. 2
Collected from Judy Jane Whittaker of Anderson MO in 1928
SOF
oct96

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